The Eagle County Sheriff’s Office released this image of the East Vail chutes area where one person was killed in an avalanche on Tuesday, January 7, 2014. (Eagle County Sheriff’s Office)
The associated press is reporting that one person is dead and three are injured following an avalanche today in the backcountry near Vail, CO.
“The slide happened at around 11:30 a.m. in East Vail Chutes, an area between Vail Mountain and Vail Pass, Eagle County sheriff’s spokeswoman Jessie Mosher said. The three survivors were expected to recover from their injuries.
The death is the fifth in the Rocky Mountain region and the second in Colorado in the last two weeks.
The avalanche danger where the latest deadly slide occurred is rated as considerable at or above the tree line for two main reasons. New snow over the weekend was pushed into slabs by wind, and those more cohesive layers of snow are resting on top of the relatively weak early season snowfall, said Spencer Logan of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. The combination of a weak base layer under cohesive slabs tends to create slides that break in very wide pieces.” – huffingtonpost.com
The CAIC rated the area at “considerable risk” for an avalanche, describing “dangerous avalanche conditions.”
